"Would anyone like some wine?" The waiter asks. I throw myself across the table onto him and cling to his neck desperately. "YESSSS!!!" I shriek.
Except I don't. I politely raise my eyebrows without breaking eye contact with his face, finally succeed in catching his attention, and say, "The Malbec, please." This is the third time he has rounded our table to ask who wants wine, and failing to catch his attention during his last two passes, I was determined to be successful this time. At this point, I am surprised my manners are in tact: I have needed wine since the moment we stepped into this restaurant.
Wearing our finest (in Honolulu that means a pretty, light-weight dress with sparkling flip-flops), we had followed my moms roommates in through the heavy door after we dropped the car off at the valet. At the sight of the valet driving off, my mom smirked and shrugged her shoulders as if to say, "Well, whatever we've gotten ourselves into, we're stuck here now!" We walked confidently through the front door, but the atmosphere of the place had suddenly snuffed my adventurous streak and all I wanted to do was turn around and run to the beach.
The first thing I had noticed was the piano. It was black, sleek, and utterly alone, shoved into the cramped entry as though the designer had thought, "Pianos are fancy, right? There! Now everyone will know this place is fancy." The walls were painted a steely grey, the floor a shiny black tile that looked like a frozen lake in the dead of winter. The color scheme seemed to be a pretentious mix of black, white, and slate, though there was a huge red ginger plant flowering exactly in the center of the room, adding one singular explosion of harsh color. The lights hanging above were covered in jagged white paper, screaming, "We are modern. Feel how urban we are. Don't you feel powerful?"
All in all, not my kind of place.
I look across the table at my mom as she orders a sake from the waiter. I can tell she feels as uncomfortable in this environment as I do. She notices me looking at her and makes a face that only I notice, which says, "Sorry. I know this is weird. Did you see the menu? $35 for a piece of fish. Dear GOD."
After about ten minutes, my wine finally shows up and I reach for it gratefully. And suddenly there are some appetizers on the table, and because I have been sitting in this restaurant for about 45 minutes already and haven't even been able to order my dinner yet, I dive on the proffered food as politely as possible. I am so focused on this food that I am simply nodding and making agreeable noises to the people around me who perhaps are carrying on a conversation, but to whom I am becoming more and more oblivious as my food intake increases (as slowly as I can manage, so as to not look like a tiger pouncing on the carcass of a fresh kill).
There is a moment where my hand reaches towards the pita bread and brushes against my wine glass, and suddenly the glass is teetering from side to side. My heart stops as I dive for the glass and watch in horror as some of the precious wine spills over the side. Onto my hand, onto the glass, and worst of all, onto the tablecloth. The pure WHITE tablecloth.
I am horrified. "Oh shit." I mutter, and I feel like crying... this was a fucking $11 glass of wine, that is about $2 worth of wine on the table! Zamboni! I hear Claire yell in my mind, but resist the urge to swoop down and start sucking the wine out of the tablecloth. Barely. I remind myself of the need to be fancy, even in these desperate situations.
My mom is staring wide-eyed in shock at me. I stare in shock at her. I raise my hand to my mouth to lick the wine off. Mom keeps staring. "I don't belong here." I whine quietly. Her mouth twitches and I can tell she is on the verge of hysterical laughter but because she too needs to be fancy, she only chuckles politely.
The woman sitting next to me offers me her napkin and we both start dabbing at the tablecloth to get the wine out, but that works about as well as telling a dog to make a sandwich. There is a huge, accusingly red wine stain on the blindingly white tablecloth. So, as any mature and fancy person would do, I grab my plate and place it right over the top of the stain. THERE. No one will know.
I momentarily forget about my blundering act of stupidity as I review the menu, and decide it is high time we had some proper entree's in our vicinity. "We'd like to order!" I say to the waiter the next time I see him running by. He slows down enough to takes out his pencil, and, looking quite harassed, actually seems ready to write something down. "Mom," I say, pointing at her, as though I am coaching an intense semi-finals soccer game rather than ordering a stir-fry, "You first." This strategy seemed to work rather well and we begin another long wait for our food, during which time the waiter uncharacteristically pays some attention to me and asks, "Are you done with that plate?"
"Sure, yes, thank you." I say, and turn back to my conversation, but as he takes the plate away I realize that THE STAIN OF SHAME is under it and twitch horribly in my attempt to figure out what to do. Did he notice? Should I be embarrassed? Can people be kicked out of restaurants for spilling wine? As my mind whirs, I reach out and grab the next closest plate that could cover up the stain: the appetizer plate. Though it is almost empty, there is still a few pieces of food on it, and because it is now sitting directly in front of me, I look like a pig who ate all the appetizer. Fantastic.
My stir-fry arrives about a fortnight later, and though it is decent, it surely is not $22 worth of food, especially because I think I could have made this dish myself, and that is seriously saying something. I look up to hearing my mom having a conversation with the woman sitting next to her, "This isn't our normal type of place." She says, smiling apologetically.
"What do you mean?" The woman asks curiously. She is very well dressed and is wearing several pieces of jewelry that sparkle in the dim light. Though not upfront or pretentious about it, I can sense her wealth.
"I mean, we sometimes like to hang out at dive bars." Mom says looking at me. I nod in agreement but am a little off-put at my mother revealing our secrets like this. Is it safe to be talking about dive bars in this nice of place? I already feel like I am disguised as a member of the 1% by just being here, but she is quickly dissolving that illusion. "There is this place in Corvallis that we like to go to, The Peacock, and it's just really fun." She explains, and I feel that we are digging a hole that we may need to climb out later.
The woman looks vaguely amused. "Ahh... yes. But what is a dive bar?"
I can feel my eyebrows shoot up into my bangs, and my mouth drops a little. Yes, I know we are in a fancy restaurant with fancy people, but how can it be that she doesn't even KNOW what a dive bar is?! Is she mad?! Has she never played pool or video poker in a bar with fake wood paneling while listening to drunk people karaoke and drinking a PBR?! Worst of all, she hasn't even HEARD of this beautiful lifestyle?! I mean, there is a time and place for fancy restaurants, but there are more times and places for dive bars.
Again, my reaction is reflected in my moms face, but only for an instant before my mom says nonchalantly, "Oh, you know, pool tables and cheap beer, kind of hole-in-the-wall places."
"Ahhh..." The woman nods in understanding, but I don't think she does. Man, sometimes the rich really miss out on the best parts of life. Come down here to our level! The beer is shitty but the laughter comes from our stomachs! And the food... oh, the food... I would kill for a burger right now as I chew this mediocre mixture of vegetables and chicken.
By the time the meal is over my mom and I are so antsy to get out of there that we decide that instead of staying out downtown with everyone else and paying even more money, we just want to go home and drink a beer. So that is what we do. I fling my dress across the room and put on pajama shorts and a T-shirt, walk barefooted to the fridge and pull out some Newcastle Brown Ales. The sigh from the bottles when I pop the caps off makes me sigh too. I hand a beer to my mom and we cheers each other for getting through the night, for the comfortable solace we find in each other, and for being awesome.
No comments:
Post a Comment